Paddy Wagon Grill food truck will close down after attending a food-truck festival this weekend, co-owner Mark Yount told the News-Leader Thursday morning.

"We've been open to the public plenty this year," he said, "but we've been focusing on the larger food festivals."

Their final one will be the 4th Annual MO Food Truck Fest 2018, an event put on by KOLR scheduled for Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the field on St. Louis Street adjacent to Springfield Expo Center. Admission is free; guests pay for their food and drink.

Yount said he and his wife, co-owner Jennifer Yount, will soon open a new restaurant at 82 S. Main St, in the historic center of Fair Grove next to the American Legion post.

Mark, John, Jennifer and Mikayla Yount stand in front of the Paddy Wagon Grill food truck, which the family owns. The truck closes following a Sept. 14, 2018 food-truck festival. The Younts plan to open a restaurant in Fair Grove, Time Traveler Cafe, on Sept. 29, 2018.(Photo: Courtesy Mark Yount)

As in other Greene County communities outside Springfield, Yount said people are always eager for more restaurant options located close to their homes.

He said word has been getting around Fair Grove — population 1,463 — because he put a Paddy Wagon sign in the window.

But the new place will be called The Time Traveler Cafe. The Paddy Wagon name didn't translate well for a brick-and-mortar store, Yount said. The Time Traveler's atmosphere will recall the 1980s, with new digital menu boards and TVs to play movies from that era.

Yount said he's hurrying because from from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sept. 29, Fair Grove hosts the 41st annual Fair Grove Heritage Reunion Festival. (The festival continues Sept. 30 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to the festival Facebook page.)

His booth seating may not be ready on that day, Yount said, but no matter: He'll have temporary tables set up and make sure Time Traveler puts its "best foot forward."

For this northeastern Greene County community — a 30-minute drive from central Springfield if traffic is normal, according to the Fair Grove Chamber of Commerce — the Heritage Reunion is no small thing.

As the News-Leader reported ahead of last year's Heritage Reunion, those 30,000 people show up to patronize hundreds of vendors, many of them demonstrating old-fashioned craft skills like blacksmithing and broom-making.

Their booths are set up around the grounds of historic Wommack Mill, built in 1883 and restored after the local historical preservation society bought it 101 years later.

About the food: When Paddy Wagon Grill opened three years ago, the News-Leader reported, it had a menu that Yount called "not fusion food" but "a diner menu."

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Along with the Fair Grove Heritage Reunion Festival in the fall, Wommack Mill hosts an annual summer Ice Cream Social. Amanda Martin, Andrew Lawson and Adalynn Martin, 2, take a look at the classic cars lined up in front of the mill on July 18, 2015.(Photo: Guillermo Hernandez Martinez/News-Leader)

The truck served classic sandwiches with jokey names: The Prison Break Tenderloin and the Trigger Man’s Fried Meatloaf were two examples.

With Time Traveler Cafe, Yount (a military veteran who graduated from a Le Cordon Bleu location in the St. Louis region) plans to expand the menu.

Gourmet burgers, a range of other sandwiches like grilled chicken and pork tenderloin, Cobb and Caesar salads, cheesecake and other items will fill out the new bill of fare. He's still developing the menu, he said.

"Chicken and waffles," Yount said. "I've been dying to do chicken and waffles."

After a few months, Yount said he intends to add bar service — just beer and wine. Fair Grove hasn't had a pub in town for a while, he said.

"It’s really a great thing for small towns to have something like that," Yount said.